author
Dave Ranney
b. 1863
A firsthand memoir of life on New York’s Bowery gives this little-known writer a vivid place in social history. His book follows a hard road through addiction, street life, and religious conversion, ending in work among the same people he once lived beside.
1 Audiobook
Dave Ranney Or, Thirty Years on the Bowery; An Autobiography
by Dave Ranney
About the author
Born in 1863, Dave Ranney is the name attached to Dave Ranney; or, Thirty Years on the Bowery: An Autobiography, published in New York by the American Tract Society in 1910. Library and catalog records also identify him as David James Ranney.
His autobiographical book centers on roughly three decades spent on the Bowery in New York City. In it, he recounts experiences of drink, poverty, and eventual conversion, then turns toward rescue and mission work among people living in the same troubled world he had known firsthand.
Very little biographical information beyond the book itself and catalog records appears to be readily confirmed, which makes him a somewhat shadowy figure today. What remains clear is the appeal of his memoir: it offers a direct, personal account of urban hardship and reform-era religious work from the early twentieth century.